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39 teams compete for Best Ranger title

When the 24th annual Best Ranger Competition begins Friday at Fort Benning, Ga., 39 two-man teams will hit the dirt and start pumping out push-ups, embarking on a 60-hour odyssey that one organizer called the “endurathon.”

The mental and physical contest is one of the Army’s toughest. More soldiers are competing this year than in the past five.

“I got a good partner. We plan on winning. I guess everybody’s saying that,” said Staff Sgt. Billy Pouliot, 30, an infantryman with 75th Ranger Regiment’s Ranger Special Troops Battalion. His partner, Sgt. 1st Class Adam Nash, won the competition in 2004 with a different buddy.

Pouliot, who has been in the Army for 12 years — the last seven in 1st Ranger Battalion — is a first-time competitor and veteran of six trips to the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One of the teams Pouliot and Nash will be competing against is a Special Forces duo — Maj. Mark Liddle, 35, and Capt. Ryan Armstrong, 31, both instructors at the Maneuver Captains Career Course at Fort Benning. Both are first-time competitors.

“It’s a great opportunity to get out there and compete against some of the best in the Army,” said Liddle, who only recently met and started training with Armstrong.

The 24-mile road march, which begins Friday evening, is notoriously difficult and takes a toll on the stamina of even the toughest competitors.

On the second night is a land navigation exercise that often marks the end for more teams.

“It’s grueling by all accounts,” Liddle said, explaining that “two nights of back-to-back motion is enough to make anyone think twice about it.”

The Liddle-Armstrong team is ready, he said, and in it as much for camaraderie as for the competition.

“There are some great people here, some great senses of humor … just great warriors. It’s great to be back here at the home of the infantry and just around that warrior spirit that the Ranger training brings out,” Liddle said.

Just back from 15 months in Iraq is an enlisted officer team from U.S. Army Alaska, Sgt. Giancarlo Urzi, 27, and Capt. Matthew Kirby, 26. Kirby was Urzi’s platoon leader during their deployment with 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, which is now 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.

“The idea was hatched in Iraq,” Urzi said, describing Kirby as “very motivational.”

Urzi and Kirby trained at Fort Richardson, Alaska, after they returned from Iraq.

“I just expect to learn a little bit about each other and about ourselves. Obviously, everybody who is here is a Type A person and wants to win the competition, but when it boils down to it, you’re competing against yourself,” said Urzi, who has been in the Army for four years. “In my mind, anything that can bring the Army together as a whole and take away the stresses of the every day world [is] a good thing.”

Urzi and Kirby are first-time competitors and champing at the bit to get going.

“Everybody looks physically fit; everybody’s sharing where they’ve been and what they know. It’s just a great bunch of professional guys. I think it’s going to be a heck of a competition,” Urzi said.

The event continues at 8 a.m. Saturday and Sunday, and culminates Monday at 10 a.m. with an awards ceremony at the Ranger Memorial.

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Best Ranger Competition